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Sunday, May 15, 2011

House reflections

Another post, so soon? What is this, Gawker? I know. I'm feeling crazy, okay??

I am just, like, brimming with excitement. For James Tate. For Camp Schmidt. For closing on Friday (!!!) and move-in on Saturday (!!!!!!!). For summer. For my ceramics class. For my last seminar class, EVER (for now).

I've really been thinking about The House and This Process in so many different ways. I will start with the awful way and then end with the delightful and romantic way. In the depressing and terrible way I've been considering this whole ordeal, I'm comparing it to the most similar journey I've undertaken so far: wedding! Now. Both involve so much money, you're kind of in denial about the whole thing ("Monopoly money," Justin termed it. Where $3,000 is a ridiculous sum any other day, but not when you're about to get hitched OR purchase a place to live!). Both involve many, many people and professionals. Both industries are known for being a little shady. Both involve updating all your friends, family and coworkers about the hilarious and/or horrendous stories for their entertainment and sympathy! Both involve plenty of advice, solicited and otherwise. But they differ in drastic ways. In one, everyone is catering to your every whim. Your opinion can change on a dime, and the people you have working for you will accommodate. Everyone who's a part of it wants everything to be perfect and fairytale. Your team of recruited friends get to throw parties and wear (usually) pretty dresses. Here's probably the most important one: If the people you are paying are not totally awesome AND amazingly competent, you get to pick other ones. Everyone is at your mercy and super nice. Now to describe the wedding industry. Ha! That was a joke. The house-buying industry. The house-buying industry is the opposite in every one of those ways. You're at everyone else's mercy, and, in our situation, they have been the least competent people I have ever heard of (with the exception of our termite guy! Thanks, termite guy!). You can't change your realtor or your mortgage people. Once you're knee deep, you can't change your house or the bank or anything they say. The rules in the contracts everyone signs apply to you and you alone -- everyone else who signs them can do whatever they want. You have to accommodate their every whim, even if it's 10:30 pm on a school night, those papers or that check needs to be somewhere NOW. And then you get to wait five or six business days while someone does something necessary with it. Your team of recruited friends now have to do physical labor for at least a full day, and if you can trick them, more than that. And in the end, only you care if you actually get the house or not! Sigh. When you look at it that way... yikes. But then, but then! You remember that it's (going to be) YOUR HOUSE.

In a practical and imminent way, The New House (especially with its summer timing!) represents such newness, such possibility! It's a crazy feeling knowing that we're going to redo the whole thing to our exact specifications. Kitchen, living room, bathrooms -- they are ours! I can't grasp that yet! Of course, I'm probably most excited about the decor and paint and the return of a basil plant, but those are details compared to everything else we're fixing too! Those would be a huge fun deal in any other circumstance, but in this situation, they are the icing on the enormous cake! I'm going to be at Michaels every other day, I can feel it. Everything is going to be so beautiful! Such a refreshing chance! And this is just getting added to my fantasies of being super healthy over the summer. P90X! Whole Living recipes! LivingSocial-provided CSA shares! And Justin and I -- we'll be married and by ourselves for the first time ever! We've been talking recently about how everything's going to be so quiet. I'll probably have a lot of music to drown out the silence this summer, I'm not gonna lie. Dog will add some activity, but certainly not at the level of three housemates and their friends (hopefully)! Our own refrigerator. I am so, I don't even.